This post is long overdue, but my Cornish Rex, Olive, has a cousin! My sister got a Sphynx, and she's an extra-special one because she has a thin layer of peach fuzz in some places. It's interesting to see how similar the mannerisms are between a Cornish Rex and a Sphynx. I wish my sister lived closer so they could spend more time together!

Here's some cute shots of Neptune. Welcome to the family, Neppy, and sorry I neglected posting about you for so long!

With a dog, a cat and a baby on the way, things have been less than easy lately. So when a representative for Mr. Chewy, a pet supply website, offered me a $50 voucher to review their site, I was hoping the process wouldn't be too cumbersome.

Luckily, I was very impressed. The site offers more than 70 brands of dog and cat food, treats, potty pads, cat litter, and flea and tick products. I ordered four bags of cat food for our Cornish Rex, Olive, and threw in a rawhide for our mix-breed puppy, Eva:

1 x Holistic Select Radiant Adult & Kitten Health Chicken Recipe Dry Cat Food, 3-lb bag - $10.99
1 x Eukanuba Chicken Adult Dry Cat Food, 4-lb bag - $10.99
1 x Halo Spot's Stew Seafood Medley Sensitive Formula Dry Cat Food, 3-lb bag - $12.99
1 x Iams Healthy Naturals with Atlantic Salmon Dry Cat Food, 6-lb bag - $14.99
1 x Merrick Beef Chews Natural Dog Treats, One Natural Beef Chew - $1.99

The total came to $52.09, qualifying me for free shipping, a perk given on all orders over $49. I was pretty impressed with this, as I had 16 pounds of cat food coming my way with no shipping charges. I ordered the food the morning of Dec. 20 and was pleasantly surprised to receive the package by the end of the next day!

For a pregnant lady barely able to waddle around these days, this is the way to go. I'll definitely be a returning customer.

Introducing the picture-perfect Ghazaleh clan! Meet Ebon, a black male; Luna, a female tortie; and new baby Maverick, a point. They come from Shelly Peacock of Texas Rexas cattery.  What a beautiful family!

I'm in the process of building a home office, which got me thinking about cute office supplies. And when I think cute, I think cat. Here are some of the cutest cat office supplies out there.

Cat Writers Memo Block by Girl of All Work, $13.95, Franklin Covey.

Jonathan Adler Cat Bookends, $39.95, Barnes and Noble.

Kitty Cat Paper Clips, $2.95, Three Dogz.

Xonex Bookmark Pen, $10, Amazon.

Cat Eraser, $4.08, Polyvore.

Desktop Stapler, Cat, $11.30, Amazon.

iPop Boy Girl Party Cats Magnets, £7.50, Papernation.

Kam Kam Magnetic Paper-clip Container, $15, Amazon.

Optical Computer Mouse - Doggy and Kitty, $30 each, Uncommon Goods.

So, a couple weeks ago I bought an offer from petsimply.com that provided me with a voucher for $30 worth of food from petfooddirect.com for just $15. At the time I thought it was a good deal, but I was hit with a shipping fee of almost $15, so I felt kind of duped.

In any case, I scanned the website for cool pet products to find, and stumbled upon the Tiki Cat King Kamehameha Luau Variety Pack Canned Cat Food, containing 12 cans for $8.99. I've seen the stuff in organic pet stores and have always been intrigued by it, so I gave it a shot.

The cool thing about this food is that all formulas are made suitable for human consumption. And the food really contains premium whole meat. When I opened the can of sardine cutlets, I was shocked—they're sardines. Not sardine by-product, not sardine flavor, but real sardines. This is the kind of stuff I can feel good about feeding Olive! Check out the recipes at www.petropics.com. Is your mouth watering too?

Olive recently got the treat of testing out the Scratch Lounge, a three-sided scratcher that also serves as somewhat of a cat nest.

When the box came in, Olive was on it like a magnet, pawing at the cardboard as I ripped it open. It comes with catnip, which she was equally intrigued by.

I liked the design—it's cute in a retro kitschy sorta way--and it has reversible scratch pads. It's got plenty of room for a little Cornish Rex, and Olive sometimes just sits in it near the door.

Olive's never been great at identifying what to scratch. In fact, she seems to like my couch more than anything else—well, except my computer chair. But I'd say her third favorite option is the Scratch Lounge, which she clearly favors over the other scratchers, which sit unattended taking up space in my house. I'll probably throw out the others and keep this one.

The warm and fuzzy part? A portion of profits go to animal rescue, including free spay and neuter clinics.

Grab one for yourself and watch videos of cats enjoying the lounge like mad at http://www.scratchlounge.com/.

This is heartbreaking, but I feel compelled to post a link to this article from WRTV Indianapolis to warn other Cornish Rex owners to watch their babies carefully if they are taken outside.

A Cornish Rex was killed Saturday morning after being attacked by two pit bulls. Apparently, the owners used to walk the cat through the neighborhood on a leash, and on Saturday they had tied his leash to the mirror of their SUV when the dogs suddenly appeared. By the time the owners reached him, it was too late

I know that many pit bulls are very sweet, and I don't mean to reinforce a negative stereotype, but please, watch your babies closely. I would hate to hear of something like this happening again.

Feast your eyes on blanketID’s chic identification tags, so glossy and rich they’ll make your mouth water. They’re a rarity of form and function, where jewelry meets safety.

The inner beauty in these gems is that they help ensure you’ll find your pet if it’s lost. With blanketID, anyone who comes across your pet can enter the tag number on the company’s website to find all the information you’d want them to have.

An electric pink cat stands tall, her paws curled coyly beneath her chin. A kitten formed of gleaming lava wraps its tail snugly around its gown, gazing outward with dark, glossy eyes shadowed by orb-like antennae. 

Welcome to Bonjour Poupette, the brilliantly strange world of collectible animal people that Sofie Skein has handcrafted out of polymer clay. Found on Etsy, these figurines—or poupettes, as the artist dubs them—are as surreal in looks as they are attainable in price, at $24 a pop.

Typically ranging from 3-4 inches in height, the poupettes come in an assortment of colors and species, from soft pink elephant to glistening gray Cornish Rex. Skein, a full-time artist who occasionally moonlights as a graphic designer or illustrator, caught glimpses of the future creatures in her early artwork.

“The first time that a long, tall, animal-headed person showed up in my work, I was working on an analog animation project and had created a deer person out of bits of paper,” she said. “Soon after I began collecting images of animals standing on their hind legs and made a number of drawings of bipedal animals.”

More of the figures emerged in her work years later.

“It wasn't until I began making quite a few of these particular figurines, or 'poupettes,' that I realized it was part of a larger theme in my work,” Skein said. “I have a great love for surrealist humor and fairy tales.”

Skein said the poupettes weren’t created deliberately.

“I basically had some clay and began playing around with it,” she said. “I initially was trying to create abstract shapes that expressed emotion. These abstract lumps evolved into strange ghostly women, who evolved into little animal-headed people—initially they were all white rabbits!”

Skein’s impetus to list the creatures on Etsy began as a dare, but evolved into a small business.

“I thought it would be a good way to learn about running an online business,” she said. “I never would have guessed that I would have sold over a hundred of these little guys within a year. They have really grown on me and I absolutely adore making them and trying out new species, as well as custom pieces.”

Skein crafts specific breeds of cats—Himalayan, Japanese Bobtail and Korat being a few examples—as well as imaginative rainbow-colored ones. She’s also made custom dog figurines based on owners’ pets.

“I've been making quite a few custom dog figurines based on actual pets and I'd love to make custom cat figurines as well,” she said. “However, so many cats are tiger striped and I am still developing my methods for making satisfactory stripes. Currently all of my figurines are made with clay alone, no paint; minute color variations can be very tricky.”

Skein’s affinity for animals developed in early childhood, as she grew up next door to her family’s veterinary clinic on the edge of Oregon’s high desert.

“Animals, both domestic and wild, have always been intrinsic to my world,” she said.

Skein now lives in Portland with her husband and beloved Bombay rescue cat, Mr. Burnside.  Her poupettes are featured in private collections in North America, Europe and. Ten percent of proceeds from poupettes inspired by threatened species are donated to the World Wildlife Fund.

A new figurine is listed daily in the shop, as well as posted on Skein’s blog at http://bonjourpoupette.blogspot.com. To buy yours, visit www.etsy.com/shop/bonjourpoupette. Skein is generously giving Cornish Rexpert readers a discount of 20 percent off the total purchase price using the code REX2011 at checkout!

In addition to the poupettes, Skein is illustrating a book cover and working on a number of commissioned encaustic and oil paintings. To view Skein’s artwork, visit http://sofieskein.com/.